Closer To Heaven
May 26, 2800. For the last three weeks, a cast of actors has been working in a North London theatre on a workshop production of Closer to Heaven, the musical set in a London club which the Pet Shop Boys and Jonathan Harvey have been writing for the past three years. This is often the first part of the process by which plays and musicals reach the stage - the workshop will show what works and what does not. Already the musical's finale has been cut, lyrics have been rewritten and several scenes have been changed. Though the workshop production is never intended for public viewing, on the last two days there are performances to which friends and colleagues of those involved are invited. Tonight is the first.

It goes fairly well. The production is fairly rudimentary, and there are weak moments, but overall it's impressive. Much of what is on stage tonight will not be in the finished musical a year later.

In its workshop version, Closer to Heaven starts with a scene between a club owner and his boyfriend where they sing a song called "Tall thin men" ("I'm not one of those tall thin men who like show tunes..."). Then we see club dancers raving in a lift to "For your own good", and the faces of Straight Dave's Irish parents are projected on a wall, talking about their son and how he has left them for London: "Nineteen letters I've written to him..." Halfway through the first half the club owner's daughter, Melissa sings a song called "Little black dress" as she prepares to go out. In the second half, Straight Dave sings the song he has written for his music career, "The only one". The musical finishes with an up tempo version of "Closer to Heaven", Straight Dave lunging manically towards the audience, dragged back by an elastic line, as the lights go out for the final time. It is generally agreed that the most successful scenes and certainly the ones which get the most laughs are the few involving one of the musical's less central characters, Billie Tricks, a European rock star has-been played by Frances Barber.

In the months after the workshop, the Pet Shop Boys and Jonathan Harvey go back to work. Eventually the Really Useful Group,

Andrew Lloyd Webber's theatrical production company, who have filmanced the workshop, agree to produce the musical, which will open at the end of May 2001, at the Ants Theatre in the centre of London.

April 20,2001. The Pet Shop Boys are at the

RSC rehearsal rooms in Clapham. Downstairs they have just watched the cast of Closer to Heaven run through the musical's first half for the first time, and they are still excited. The show has changed a great deal since last year's workshop. New songs have been written, and others have been dropped. Characters have changed, and sometimes their names have changed too. (Melissa, for instance, has become Shell.) Some have simply disappeared. Though the musical is still set in a nightclub, the story has changed significantly. Culy one performer -Frances Barber - remains from the workshop; her part is now much bigger and her character is now more central to the whole musical.

The changes are far from over. Today, in the RSC's upstairs office, Jonathan Harvey is concentrating at a keyboard, writing a new scene. Neil and Chris slip into a small office with a sign on the door: "Wig Room". On a table is a model of the Closer to Heaven set with umbrellas hanging in the air and cutout black silhouette figures. Behind Neil Tennant's head is a poster, Historic England, offering a detailed royal family tree, and a still of Judy Garland at the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road just after she has arrived in Oz. Behind Chris Lowe are shelves of bald model heads. He browses through Principles and Practice of Hairdressing as Neil tells him he's going to do most of this interview. "I'm sick of me doing all the talking," Neil says. Someone pops out to get them cappuccinos from Nero down the road. After a while Jonathan Harvey, the new scene obviously finished, makes faces through the window in the door, trying to put Chris off.

This conversation was to have been for a deluxe Closer to Heaven musical brochure. Though the brochure would be written - it also included a traumatic anonymous account of one person's involvement with the drug ketamine,

which plays an important part in the musical's plot, and Jonathan Harvey also wrote the biography of the musical's boy band Up'n 'Coming and also the text about Billie Tricks and his diary from the musical's creation which would later be used in the cast album CD booklet - it would, for logistical reasons, never be published.

This is what was said:

When did the two of you first discuss wanting to write a musical?

Chris:   I don't know. It goes back a long way. A very long time ago. Our music has always had a theatrical quality to it. Our live shows have always been very theatrical. And we got a liking for the people that worked in the theatre - all the wig-makers and set-designers, and we started to meet directors and so on. And we thought: "This is an interesting world and we'd like to be more part of it." They seemed to make what seems impossible possible quite easily, and effortlessly. And there seemed to be a lot of integrity to what everyone was trying to achieve. It just gets boring, being in a pop group the whole time. It's good to do something different.

You spoke about it in public fairly early in your career - in early 1986, just after "West End girls" reached number one, Chris told Smash Hits that you wanted to write stage musicals. Chris: Did I?

Neil:     It was Chris who said it, let's note. It's not just me. It's funny, because in rock music or pop music, it's sort of a clichés': pop stars saying "then there's the musical we've promised ourselves... It's a famous line from Spinal The.

Chris:   "That musical we've always promised ourselves". Which I think would be a great title for the musical.

Neil:     If you look at the history of pop music, there's an interview with The Beatles in 1964 saying that they imagine they'll end up writing musicals. And we've certainly been talking seriously about writing a musical for over ten years. I remember once having a discussion with Derek Jarman, who directed our first tour in 1989, about writing a musical. In the programme

for our Performance tour it says that the next thing we're planning to do is a musical, and that was 1991 Chris: They do take a lot time to bring to fruition.

Neil:     We definitely began to think seriously m the Nineties: an the late Eighties we had an idea based on a book, and then at the beginning of the Nineties we had the idea for a show based on another book, and we started to write songs for it and discussed it with the designer David Fielding. In the end we had a problem getting the rights to that book. But at the same time I went to see An Inspector Calls, and we met with Stephen Dairy and discussed the idea with him. Meanwhile, in 1992, the BBC Drama department asked us of we were interested in writing a musical for BBC TV and they suggested Jonathan Harvey could be a playwright for us to work with. This was when his play Beautiful Thing was on in London, so we went to see that and really liked it, but that didn't come to anything. A while later we realised we couldn't get the rights to the other book, so we decided to write something from scratch. By then we'd been to see another of Jonathan's plays, Boom Bang-a-Bang, about a load of people watching the Eurovision Song Contest...

Chris:. . Which was really good... Neil: . . so we thought we'd do it with him. Jonathan thought we'd been really smash with him before, when the BBC musical was being discussed, because we'd kept cancelling a lunch the BBC had tried to arrange because we'd been recording. But we finally had dinner with him and got on like a house on fire. The following year, 1996, the three of us sat down in this house called Child own we'd rented in Surrey and started to work on it.

How did you decide what it would be about?

Neil:     Chris had an idea. Chris: We wanted it to be set in the world of clubbing.

Neil:     We thought about what musical areas there were where you can set a musical. One thing I like about Cabaret is that it's a performance in a

club and all of her songs are on it age, in the film, so you get oter the whole cue-frit-a song thing. 'We decided to chose a musical enviriansnent that would lend itself to contemporarily music, and so it was obvious it would be set in a nightclub. We were looking at things we know about, and we know about nightclubs.

Chris:   It's a world that we've observed at close hand.

Neil:     We also wanted to put in something about the music business, because we knew it. When we started writing the play, in the mid-Nineties, there were lots of other boy bands emerging in the wake of Take That, and Chris and I had always been fascinated by this manipulated pop, and we thought that would be a good subplot. However we decided we didn't want to have a boy band on stage. We didn't want it to be a musical about a boy band.

Chris:   And then we thought that it's always good when someone has conflicting sexuality. Although in one of the earlier drafts of the play one of the criticisms of it was that everyone in it was bisexual.

Neil:     There's a weird democracy in nightclubs. Or, rather, there's a different hierarchy than in the real world. And I've always been interested by how people are at night, compared to how they are during the day.

Chris:   The whole play is set at night, apart from one scene near the end'. We also liked that when you re in a club, what you are outside the club doesn't necessarily bear any relation to what you are when you're in the club.

Neil:     We put video screens in because we'd liked the way they were used in our shows at The Savoy Theatre, and also because surveillance is such a fact of contemporary life. Also, in the Nineties, Britain became an incredible drug culture in a way it hadn't been since the Sixties -and actually I don't think it was like that even in the Sixties. It became a kind of mass market drug culture. And we thought, "Why isn't this on the stage?" There's this amazing cultural phenomenon, after the rave phenomenon started, where millions of people go clubbing, take ecstasy, and get off their heads. If you listen to

the radio these days you ~l like it's almost sanctioned by the BBC. But you don't see it in the theatre. And we wanted to write about what it does to people when they live their lives at night totally and do drugs all the time. And you see people around you who live like that in London and whose lives do get more or less destroyed. The musical has a schizophrenic view of club culture. It has the point of view that it's fabulous, but it also it has the point of view that it's an appalling nightmare and destroys people's lives. It's not quite a morality tale, but it has elements of that. But then it may also revert to the fact that it's relentless, and relentlessly fabulous, and the music is great, and it's all there for a reason. It's a kind of continuity, and people are going to go on doing it. People have to escape from their lives and this is one way how. It's up to you to decide about the human cost.

Had you both been big fans of musical theatre?

Neil:     I had. When I was a child I used to go to the Theatre Royal in Newcastle where they'd get touring productions before or after the West End, so when I was a child I saw My Fair Lady and Camelot, and also some amateur productions. I used go on Saturday afternoons and queue up for the cheap seats in the gods. I remember seeing My Fair Lady when I was about 11 and I thought it was a fantastic show. I also saw film rascals. Everyone always thinks of the Sixties as being The Beatles and The Stones and Tamla Motown and "All You Need Is Love" and everything, which it was, but it was also a big time for film musicals: The Sound Of Music and My Fair Lady, for instance, and my parents had both albums.

Chris:   I don't think I went to see any musicals in the flesh, but I saw films. I enjoyed The Sound Of Music and I still enjoy The Sound Of Music, but I saw some terrible ones like Half Sixpence.

Neil:     When I was much younger my mother's father was the first person I knew who had a stereo gram and to him the ultimate high fidelity recordings were the film soundtracks of all the Rodgers and Harumerstein musicals, so we'd go

over there on Sundays and he'd be playing Oklahoma! And South fic and ~g how fantastically they were recorded. That made a big impression on me. Then, when I was 11, I joined the People's Youth Theatre -'the People's Theatre is the big amateur theatre in Newcastle which owns a former cinema, and they have a young people's group. I went from 11 to 18, and I was a terrible actor, but eventually I wrote a play. It was called The Baby. It was about a boy and a girl having a relationship and it falling apart and then the girl discovers she's pregnant, and the boy thinks this'll save the relationship, but it doesn't. It had three or four songs in it, which I wrote, though I didn't appear in it. But I'd always wanted to write musical theatre. When I was nine years old I wrote a musical with a girl at primary school. It was called The Girl Who Pulled Thus, a cautionary tale about a girl who went around pulling the tails of cats and how she got into trouble. The showstopper was called "Has anybody seen my cat?": "Has anybody seen my cat - the one with the long tail?" We performed it in her back garden one afternoon and we got very angry because people didn't pay attention. It didn't transfer, I'm afraid. Nowadays we'd say that it was rather under-realised.

Aside from in her back garden, did you perform in any musicals?

Neil:     I was in Oliver! when I was 16.1 had the smallest speaking part and I wasn't very good. I played the doctor who comes to see Oliver after he'd been found by the nice middle-class gentleman. I was also in the chorus. Chris's onstage career is far more distinguished. Chris: I first trod the boards in pantomime in Holy Trinity church hall, in Dick Whittington, and even then I thought it was quite exciting. I liked all the quick costume changes, and the light bulbs in the dressing rooms. I was only a cub scout at the time. I was nine. I can remember the song from it: "Give Me Some Stout-Hearted Men". After that, I didn't go onstage for ages until I was an extra in the travelling English National Opera production of Carmen in Liverpool. They came to the hall of residence at university, asking for extras. That

was a great experience. More costumes and make-up. I was a toreador. All I had to do was walk across the stage, but it's a great scene -everyone is throwing flowers. Me and my friend couldn't get the tune out of our heads - we'd walk round the streets, singing "The March Of The Toreadors" for weeks.

Neil: There is a whole Lowe family tradition. Chris: My grandfather - my mother's father -was in a comedy jazz group called The Nitwits, who would play in Las Vegas. I had trombone lessons when I was young and played in a jazz band. My mother was an actress and dancer and singer. She used to play the leads in pantomime. She played against Arthur Askey in Manchester.

Did you always stay interested in musicals as you got older?

Neil:     When I first came to London in the early Seventies, I'd see films. Cabaret, to me, is the most perfect musical film ever made. And then in the Eighties I got interested in Stephen Sondheim musicals.

Chris:   I went to see Evita in the late Seventies and loved it. It might have been when I came down for job interviews, for my year out working in an architect's office. I queued up for returns by myself. I don't know why I did, but I liked it. I liked the music and the staging of it. It was quite abstract and minimal, and it seemed fresh and exciting and dynamic. That was probably the first proper musical I'd seen.

When you first talked about writing a musical, what was your idea of how a musical written by the Pet Shop Boys should be?

Chris:   First, we wanted to write something that wasn't Les Mis or, later, Rent. Sometimes it's easier to know what you don't want to do. But what we wanted was a musical with lots of good contemporary songs in it. A play about contemporary life with contemporary music that was not long and boring.

Neil:     At one time, in the Forties and Fifties, musicals were the source of pop songs. Chris: The video hadn't been invented then. Neil: Then, in the Sixties, when youth-orientated pop music came along, that took over as pop

music. But remember that The Beatles under to do show tunes when they started: "'Til There Was You" is from The Music Man.

Chris: "You'll Never Walk Alone", Gerry and the Pacemakers.

Neil:     After that, the musical was replaced as the pop music of the day, and musicals de"' eloped away from that as their own genre; they developed the kind of music that had already been in earlier musicals. You got updates of that

-           Stephen Sondheim took elements of pop music and jazz - but the Broadway musical developed as something that had Broadway kind of music in. The last time it was attempted to put contemporary pop music in musicals in a major way were rock operas like Godspell or Hair or Jesus Christ Superstar And then the modern musical developed as a hybrid between the old-fashioned Broadway musical and rock operas, and became its own sort of genre, and has music that you wouldn't hear anywhere else apart from in a theatre or on a cast album. And we wanted to see if you could go back to the way it used to be, where musical theatre has contemporary music you could also hear on the radio. That's something we've thought about almost as long as we've been going in the Pet Shop Boys. There are many people who think it is not possible to tell a narrative in pop music, because the dynamic of pop music, which is rhythm-based and beat-based, doesn't allow the subtleties necessary in telling a story. And actually in a lot of rock musicals there's a certain amount of truth in that as well.

How easy did you find it to come up with the story between the three of you?
Neil:     Quite easy. We all sat round in the sitting room at Child own, talking, and we started to sketch out this idea.

Chris:   Talking about the plot, and what songs were needed and how the songs would work. Neil: One day we drove into Woking and got all the musicals we could get. We sat round for two afternoons watching The Sound Of Music, Oliver!, and Annie and Carousel~

Chris:   Not a good idea, actually, watching all these in a row.

Literally.

Neil: We watched them all just to see how the music was used and what it does, how they go into the music from speech. I think we thought the most skilful one was The Sound Of Music. In The Sound Of Music the characters are different at the end of every song than they are at the start. Whatever you think of the music, it's really well done. Like, in "My Favourite Things" the relationship between the governess and the children is established through a song and by the end they're all pals. Anyway, we sat round talking, and finally we came up with a plot and a selection of characters and then Chris and I would go down to the studio and start writing music and Jonathan started writing the script. For instance, we had the character Saunders, the pop manager, early on and we had the idea for the song "Call me old-fashioned" to establish who the manager was, so that was one of the first ones we wrote. Another early song was "In denial", for which Chris already had the music. The musical at that point was called Nightlife, which was Jonathan's title, and we wrote a song to go at the end of the show called "Nightlife". A lot of the Pet Shop Boys album Nightlife was originally going to be in the musical: "For your own good" was going to be the opening number, and "The only one" was a song one boy sang about another. Sometimes Jonathan suggested to us ideas for songs; sometimes we suggested scenes to Jonathan.

Did you find yourself writing songs differently when you were writing them for the musical? Chris: We did towards the end, because the closer we got to finishing the more we realised how important it is that there are no extraneous meaningless bits. Even though it's a song, the lyrics are also dialogue. The lyrics had to be changed on many songs, and the new songs had to be really specific lyrically.

Neil:     We threw songs out as we went. In the beginning we'd shoved songs in which we already had.

Chris: You realise it doesn't work like that. Neil: Our song "You only tell me you love me when you're drunk" was in the musical, and Jonathan was having to write a whole scene just

to he able to go into it. We had a long meeting with Trevor Nm at the National Theatre who read the second draft and likened to the songs, and gave us a tutorial for an hour-and-a-half about what he thought was wrong with it, which was really generous. We really got the point that there mums 'the a sense that the data  ~ somebody sings a song, and the dramas carries on, and that's an issue we've a kissed sear' since.

Are there any songs left in Closer to heaven which weren't written specifically for the musical?

Neil: No, apart from "Shameless", this song which we wrote years ago. It was originally the b-side of "Go West". We wanted to have a scene which summed up the world that these people were in, and "Shameless" did it. Some of the others started as different songs, but then became songs in the musical.

Has it made you realise that pop songs and show tunes are very different, or that they're not? Neil: I think we're achieved what we've set out to do. I think we've written a contemporary story with contemporary music. People do use the popular song for telling stories - obviously rap does that all the time, and a lot of pop songs tell stories, and here we just tell one story through several songs.

Has this experience inspired you to start working on another musical? Chris: Yes. Neil: Yes. Chris: The next one I would like to be flint for all the family. It's all very well doing this, but you can't switch the telly on these days without this kind of filth coming out at you. I don't mean I'd like something anodyne and saccharin and horrible, but I'd like something intermeshed.

Do you think this experience will change what the Pet Shop Boys do as a pop group? Chris: I think maybe it'll have the reverse effect, and there'll be a greater distinction between us as the writers of musicals and as rock stars, or

Neil: Thai was another reason to do it:

Chris:    I've never liked being on the stage. You can tell by looking at any of the videos how much I enjoy it.

I think people suspect you secretly enjoy looking like you're not liking it.

Chris: Do you think? [laughs] Neil: When we did our 1991 tour, Performance, with David Alden and David Fielding who'd been working with the English National Opera, we had discussions with a London promoter to put the tour on in London in a theatre. We didn't want us to be in it; we thought it would work as a show on its own. And with this it's good not being in it. In pop music, we have absolute control over everything we do, and one of the interesting things about this process is that it's an absolute collaboration. This isn't "The Pet Shop Boys musical", it's "by Jonathan Harvey and the Pet Shop Boys, directed by Gamma Bodinetz, produced by the Really Useful Group, starring all the actors and dancers..."

Chris:    [laughs] You'd be surprised how much input all the actors have.

Neil:     I thought the actors just did what they were told.

Chris:    Far from it. There's a lot of input coming from everyone.

Neil:     At the beginning it was rather unnerving. We weren't used to it. People would say things and you think "who asked you?" But now I really like that. It's this huge collaboration and completely different from working in pop music where ultimately it's you and your songs and your music and you being dressed up and you

are the focus. It's great not being the focus, and watching it happen. And I find it interesting hearing other people smug our songs. When we write a song and I sing it, that's it, really. Chris: It's great hearing other interpretations. Neil: With the melodies, they join up the dots more. I sort of float over things. And it changes the style of things. If you heard our demo of the opening song, "My nighf', which is a big number involving all of the characters, it's much more of a disco record.

Chris: The original intention was to sound like Daft Punk.

Neil: Here it's still disco but it's a big opening show tune. For some reason I felt terribly proud that we'd managed to write this big opening number to a musical, and actually I didn't think we were capable of doing that. In a musical the music can be a kind of shorthand that gets to the emotional heart of a situation very quickly. Music has an emotional quality which is completely different from speaking. I remember years ago we went to a Variety Club lunch for Liza Minnelli, and Vanessa Red grave gave a speech about Liza. She said that when she was a child her father Michael Red grave used to play songs on the piano and she noticed that all the songs she liked best had a picture of this woman on the cover of the sheet music, Judy Garland, and they were all from films. And she said to her father, "Why are they singing in these films?" And he said, "Sometimes someone feels something so strongly, to speak isn't enough and they have to break into song."

Chris: It's such a good explanation for it. Neil: This had quite a big effect on us. Both of us had tears in our eyes. I think that became one of the reasons why we wanted to write a musical.

After this conversation, Neil and Chris return to the outside office where sample Billie Tricks t­shirt designs are spread over the table. Most of the t-shirt designs quote dialogue spoken by Billie Tricks in the play. "Mind the eyebrows, sweetie," says one. Jonathan Harvey says he thinks it's "too Ab Fab". In another, she is smoking. "You know what I think about smoking," says Chris. That one says: GET

YOUR kicks With billie tricks. "I can't get by it;' Chris coinunites meaning  the cigarette. "I just don't like ionone smoking a cigarette."

Neil sets at the designate. "[can't judge these;' he say~ "flat’s my opinion."

Chris nods: "We're not down with the kids"

"I'm not down with the kids and the aesthetic of this design company;' says Neil. But he has an idea. Billie Tricks should have her own merchandise stall in the theatre foyer. "Like it was her own gig," he says. They agree that, Chris's objections aside, the smoking image is the strongest.

"Chris, you could im8gine it's anoint," Neil suggests. Chris brightens at this thought. It seems to fit the character better too. "Can they make it fatter?" Neil instructs. "Then it's a joint."

They move on to consider some mug designs. They like one with Hedonism written vertically, particularly because it has a fill stop after the word. They also like one which uses another Billie Tricks saying: "I collect sexy working-class boys".

They talk about whether they prefer how some of these graphics portray the words "Closer to Heaven" to the graphics which are used on the show's poster and all its promotional material. It is one more thing to worry about.

"We've got a very traditional graphic with a very unconventional show," Neil considers.

"Is it not too late to change the whole thing," provokes Chris. (It is, of course.)

Jonathan Harvey hands them copies of the new scenes he's just written.

"There's not enough nudity on stage," reflects Chris, then reads. "That's really good," he says.

Neil asks what is happening downstairs.

"They're reading the sauna scene," he is told.

"I might go and watch the choreography," he says. "I like watching rehearsals."

They laugh about how tricky it has been to persuade the actors not to sing in the traditional affected and over-melodramatic way usually favoured in musicals, and, by way of demonstration, the three of them launch into a cockney version of "In denial". Jonathan Harvey

says that he's really glad Neil and Chris weren't there the first time the cast ran through the opening number; he thought they would both have hated it.

Christopher Nightingale, the musical director, walks in and they discuss how the music and the speech should combine in "My night".

"I don't like the music fading under the speech," says Neil. "Because you lose the sense of it being one number. We should thin things out rather than turn the music down. You lose the dynamic of the song totally."

They debate whether the musical cues should be determined by the actors and how fast they deliver their dialogue, or whether they should have to fit in with a pre-ordained gap between each chorns or verse. Neil favours the latter. "I think having a tension of a number of bars gives a feeling," he says. "They should be firing those lines off in jagged, nervous, edgy way. Rather than that they're got all the time in the world."

"Particularly being an opening number," Chris agrees. "I don't think it should be open to interpretation."

"I'm really impressed with Frances's singing," says Neil. Frances Barber, who plays Billie Tricks, is well known as an actor but has never sung on stage before. "She's really singing," he says.

"I was impressed by 'Friendly fire'," says Christopher Nightingale.

"She brought a tear to my eye," says Neil. Nonetheless, they remind each other to be careful not to allow Billie Tricks to become too much of a caricature. "The way she sings 'My night'," suggests Neil, "could be a little bit more like Amanda Lear. A bit more laid back."

Chris mentions that he has received an invitation to a musical in Richinond.

"You get invited now you're musical writers," says Jonathan Harvey. "Now you're Lerner and Leowe."

Neil gestures towards Chris. "He's already Lowe."

Chris looks back at Neil and completes the joke. "He's a learner."

They walk downstairs, past a sign saying

"To Gents", to which someone has attired the words "of Verona".

"That's the sort of thing," says Neil, '~hat makes me reach for my revolver."
April 23,2001. Mafia studios, Primrose Hill. At the same time as rehearsals continue, the Pet Shop Boys are overseeing the recording of the Closer to Heaven cast album which is being produced by Stephen Hague. There has been some resistance to allowing the performers, who are already on a very tight rehearsal schedule, to further busy themselves with the recording studio, but today Paul Keating, who plays Straight Dave, has been allowed up here to work on the closing song, "Positive role model". As Literally arrives, Keating is being encouraged to cause a screeching wail through his vocal microphone by lifting up his headphones so that the sound feedbacks. Stephen Hague asks him to do it over and over, varying the noise in rough time with the music. "There's an art monster deep in you," Stephen Hague congratulates him.

At the back of the studio, Neil and Chris worry about what to call the extra albums which come with each of the six forthcoming Pet Shop Boys re-releases. The final artwork has to be delivered tomorrow, and they still haven't made up their mind. Neil has suggested that each extra album is prefixed with the word "More" (More Please, More Actually and so on), but Chris isn't too sure.

"How about Additional?" he suggests.

"That's very PSB," Neil concedes. But they're still not sure. (They won't actually agree on the solution - Further Listening - until quite literally the very last moment possible with Neil shouting suggestions to Chris about the final details of how the name and album dates should be combined as Chris is halfway out the door of their designer's office, just minutes before the final artwork is sent off to the printers.).

Paul Keating sings some more of "Positive role model". Chris complains that the studio's green lava lamp no longer pushes up wax bubbles, just sits there. Stephen Hague plays Paul Keating some vocal ad-libs which Neil has sung over the backing track ("That's what I need

now", "Who's it gonna he? Who's it gonna be?" and "Follow a lead now") for Keating to copy.

"Yeah," says Neil. "The lava lamp's died." Stephen Hague asks them about the deadline

for this album. Neil says that he's heard they want at least the first single and video ("Positive role model" is the favourite contender) in time for the show's opening. "But it's not our job," he points out. "As Elvis Costello said when asked how they're going to sell his new album, 'that's not my job - I make the records'. I thought, 'I'm going to remember that'. It really sidesteps the issues.

Chris goes out to make a phone call. Stephen Hague mentions that Bryan Adams is recording next door. Paul Keating works on the ad-libs.

"You can have a little bit of vibrato at the end of these lines," Stephen Hague tells him.

"You won't hear that very often," Neil tells Keating, "so enjoy it while you can." Singing with lots of vibrato is one of the affected theatrical habits which Neil and Chris have been fighting against.

Chris walks back in. "Are we finished?" he asks, hopefully. "I can't wait for my kebab. Maybe a bit of halloo too."

Paul Keating sings "Positive! Positive!"

"Neil, how about a few 'negative's?" Chris teases. "It's very positive, this song."

The next time Keating sings "Positive!" (he is in a sound booth, behind a pane of glass), Neil and Chris both holler "negative!". Everyone laughs.

"You know what we should do for the video," says Chris, "is have a dance routine the public can learn, like - what's the Abba group called?"

"Steps," says Neil.

"Yeah, Steps," says Chris. "I think we should do a video of everyone dancing in the street, like Fame. Like Geri Halliwell's 'It's Raining Men', but done properly. And they can dance past the theatre it's on in. A supermarket dance scene -that's not been done for a while, has it?"

Neil mentions that one of the dancers has a lisp because he bit off the end of his tongue when he was young.

Hague plays the part of the backing track on which Chris Zippel (the Berlin-based producer who worked with the Pet Shop Boys on their version of "Positive role model") can he heard saying "reinvention my intention".

"I like his voice," says Neil. "It sounds like something from The Never-Ending Story."

"It should be like the fantasy middle-eight," Stephen Hague instructs Paul Keating.

Paul Keating tries, but still sings it too normally.

"Make it more kids' telly," suggests Neil.

"Timmy Mallett," offers Chris.

"No, I mean..." begins Neil, then says, "I don't know what I mean."

"Andi Peters?" suggests Chris, unhelpfully.

"No. Younger. More Emma Bunton," says Neil.

"Ant and Dec?" says Chris.

"No," says Neil.

Paul Keating goes ahead anyway, and they like it, Neil proclaiming his vocal "pure Never-Ending Story", which is what he had wanted in the first place.

They're finished for the night. Paul Keating is supposed to have a cab waiting for him, but it isn't here.

"Who can we call to check?" wonders Chris.

"No," corrects Neil. "Who can we call to blame? That's what you do, Chris."

Eventually the cab arrives.

"I really enjoyed that," Paul Keating says, about his afternoon in the studio. "I really did, a lot."

He leaves.

"Wasn't there another Paul Keating?" Chris asks. "Wasn't he the President of Australia?"

"He was the one who put his arm round the Queen," says Neil.

"He was the one who touched the Queen," nods Chris. "With his singing."

It is now the time of day when Pet Shop Boys argue about Geri Halliwell. Chris likes her version of "It's Raining Men". Neil doesn't.

"I think it's good," says Chris. "I'm going to buy it."

"Oooh," says Neil. "You're just trying to be provocative."

"It's make me want to go and see the film," Chris insists.

They talk about S Club 7: how surprisingly good their new single is, but how weird they seem.

"You can tell they all chain-smoke Benson & Hedges, can't you?" Chris wildly asserts, and the Pet Shop Boys depart for their Greek meal.

May 15,2001. Early evening, In just over an hour, the first public performance of Closer to Heaven will begin. (This is not the official opening night. Like most theatre productions, Closer to Heaven opens in previews in front of paying audiences for a couple of weeks while final adjustments are made.)

The last couple of days have been a little nerve-racking. Before the weekend the director had cancelled yesterday's dress rehearsal in front of friends and family of the cast, because they weren't ready to perform the show in front of any kind of audience, however encouraging and supportive. On Sunday, two days ago, Neil rewrote the lyrics for the first Version of "Closer to Heaven". Today, Neil and Chris have been watching rehearsals and are now sneaking out for a meal before the show. They are as nervous and on edge as Literally has ever seen them.

"I'm shattered," says Neil.

"I'm absolutely drained," says Chris.

They discuss what they'll do afterwards.

"It's going to take ages to wind down," says Chris.

"I might go for a jog," considers Neil.

At this point, they can't even quite work out what they think of the musical.

"It's very Mamma Mia meets Trainspotting," says Neil. "There's so much drug-taking."

A photographer from the Press Association takes a photo of Neil and asks who is coming tonight. He means famous people.

"It's only the preview," Neil says. Celebrities usually come to the official opening night.

"Is Chris coming?" the photographer asks. He obviously doesn't know what Chris looks like.

"No," says Neil. "He's not coming." When the photographer wanders out of earshot he adds,

you were only standing netted bio~ at the time." They go round the corner for ~ -L

fish and chips.

"It's real~ nice that it got this far;'

says Chris. He says that   time the story unfolds m front of loins, it elicits him. "It's emotionally draining, just sitting in ~ and I've heard it all before"

Neil mentions that be tends to cry during the second version of "In denial", when Shell sings "look at me, I love you".

"Less than an hour to go, everyone;' says Chris.

Neil runs through the brief speech he is planning to give before the show starts.

"Who wrote it?" Chris asks.

"I've written it, of course;' says Neil. "It's not going to be long."

"'By the way, me and Chris are not in the show';' says Chris.

"That's quite a good point;' Neil says. He reads out some lines about how there may be hitches but that the show will go on nonetheless.

"It sounds like you're in a church hall up north;' says Chris. "Are you going to come up and tap the mice: 'Refresliments will be served in the interval - tea, coffee and Cornish pasties. And if you would make a donation to church funds..."'

Neil works some more on his text.

"'This is your night';' says Chris.

"I originally had that in, but it was too corny," says Neil.

They pick at their food.

"I've never been this tense about something in my entire life," says Neil. "You have so many highs and lows. You have unbelievable lows." He turns to Chris. "On Saturday, when you were at the boxing..."

"Football."

..... it was awful. I said to Gemma on Monday, 'how suicidal were you on Saturday, on a scale of one to ten?' She said, 'twelve'."

They choose this moment to reflect on the music they have written for the show. "Chris Nightingale said there's three types of song;' says Neil. "One: Big numbers and set pieces -'Positive role model', 'My night', 'Caligula'.

Chris sips some white wine. ^4'We should have a pot of tea with fi8h and chips;' he observes.

"The second half is so draining;' says Neil, then adds, uit's quite possible to go through life just quoting Billie Tricks." He says to Chris:

"What do you think of the line, which I really' hate, 'you've given the best a woman could give'? I find it a bit misogynistic.'

"Isn't the whole play a bit misogynistic?" provokes Chris.

"I hope it's not," says Neil earnestly.

"I don't think it is;' says Chris.

They walk back over to the theatre.

"We're not even the performers;' laughs Chris.

"Thank God for that," says Neil. He smiles. "It's a big day in our lives, this. 'What are you doing tonight?' we're just opening our first West End musical."

"Oh God," says Chris. "Oh dear."

They try to sneak in without the fans noticing. It's difficult - the stage door is right by the entrance. "Why can't it be round the back like any other theatre?" Chris complains.

Backstage, you can hear the cast warming up their voices. Chris looks at a Pet Shop Boys interview which is stuck to the wall. "'Well into their forties'," he reads out, laughing. Paul Keating wanders about, his shirt off.

"Why are you not doing warm-ups?" Chris asks him.

"I've got choreography notes," he says.

"Is there not an empty dressing-room?" Chris asks no one in particular. "With a sofa? I

word."

need half-an-hour's kip." He well knows that there isn't. "I could at least do with a chair," he mutters. "There must be somewhere to sit."

They cram themselves into the small production office. "You know;" says Chris, "it's very like the back office of Heaven." Heaven is one of London's most popular nightclubs; they will sometimes have to explain to people that the "Heaven" in the title of the musical has no relation to the nightclub of the same name.

Neil puts some King champagne they've been sent into the little fridge by the door. "Very Jeffrey Archer," he says.

"I'm going to take mine home," Chris declares.

"Typical north-westerner;" says Neil. "That's what Bernard would do." He stands up. "I've got to go and rehearse my speech."

"We could be watching East Enders," says Chris. He smiles at the sound of the singers' continuing vocal warm-ups. "It's great when they go up a key." Then he sighs. "Bloody hell, I'm knackered." He plays with some scissors on the desk, then looks at them. "Even the scissors are from IKEA," he says. He fiddles some more. "I feel quite nervous, funnily enough," he repeats. "I wouldn't feel quite as nervous if I had a sofa to lie on." He gets a good luck text message from a friend. "I wonder if I'll have a panic attack," he says. "I was sick last time, during the workshop, when it was all falling apart. We think it was a panic attack. I've never had one before." He sits back. "It's fanny, isn't it?" he laughs. "A lot of groups have talked about 'that musical we've always promised ourselves'. Very few have gone this far."

Neil returns from his private speech rehearsal. "I feel like I'm going to be sick," he says.

"Maybe we should have a chill pill," says Chris, half-quoting the musical.

"My heart's beating," says Neil.

"Is it beating like a drum?" Chris asks. "Going boom boom boom?"

"I don't know that it is," says Neil.

Chris worries that the Pet Shop Boys have made an etiquette blunder. They haven't got anything for the cast,

"Aren't we meant to get them something?" he asks Neil.

"May 31st," says Neil, meaning that they're supposed to buy the cast something on opening night.

"We could get them some merchandise," Chris suggests.

Neil studies his notes, and scribbles.

"Are you still refining your speech?" Chris asks. "You could still bottle out."

"I'm not going to bottle out," Neil says.

"You could always read a Shakespeare sonnet

-           that's what you'd normally do," Chris suggests.

"'This is sonnet 110, for those opening their first musical'," mugs Neil.

"'We've decided to open our musical at a south London school'," says Chris. (The Labour party has just opened their election campaign, to much ridicule, with a Tony Blair speech at just such a school.) "You should get Neil to talk about Geri Hallowell," he says. "She's hijacked the election to promote her album. Talk about shameless."

Neil practises his speech some more.

"Are you having a spotlight?" Chris asks.

"No," he says, "I'm too sweaty." He considers this. "I need some perfume," he says. "I feel sweaty. I need some cologne. I'm going to go to the men's room, see what they have." Soon he is back. "I'm wearing Armani, by the way." He reads the theatre programme, in which the Pet Shop Boys have insisted on the briefest and simplest biography. He is amused to note that Stacey Roca, who plays Shell, has an ever shorter one. "Stacy has out-cooled us," he acknowledges.

"What time are we starting?" Chris asks.

"8.15 is my speech," says Neil. "For many people the highlight of the show."

Someone shouts that it is now 8.05.

"Oh crikey," says Neil.

"Oh deary me," says Chris.

Chris flicks through the programme. "'Order the CD now'," he reads. He laughs. They've barely started making it.

The clock ticks on.

"Maybe I could go to the toilet," says Chris.

"What a good idea," says Neil.

Chris goes, and returns.

"We're going to light up the night with fire..." sings Neil.

"God, I hope we get through that first number," says Chris. "It's a bloody big number."

They sit there, waiting.

"I'm voting Green," says Chris. "I care about the environment, me. I think it's the number one issue for the world. No one ever says these resources are finite. One day there'll be a huge panic that there's no oil left." He holds up the bottle of water in his hand. "Look at this. What a waste."

They move into the hallway, in preparation. Neil goes to the bathroom and Chris discusses the crowds at Arsenal with Paul Broughton who plays the loud, uncouth pop manager Bob Saunders.

"Can you come down?" a woman shouts.

"Neil's still on the toilet," says Chris. "Neil" he hollers, "you're delaying the show."

Neil appears soon alter, and while Chris vanishes to the back of the auditorium Neil makes his way towards the stage - as the crowd applauds - until he is standing just in front of the stage, where he says: "I just wanted to welcome you all to the Arts Theatre tonight. It's a very exciting night for us, because it's the first public performance of Closer to Heaven. The official first night is on May 31st but this is the first preview. Chris and I have been working with Jonathan Harvey on this for; on and off, about five years now - over the last year with the Really Useful Group, with the director, designer, choreography, technical people, cast, so it's a giant collaboration. Tonight the collaboration includes you, because you're the first audience to see this and we want to feel your energy." After which there is a big whoop and more applause. "The first rehearsal finished about two hours ago," Neil continues, "so..." He breaks to say something else, because since he has been speaking, he has been doing so under a steady barrage of flash bulbs. "Could people not take photographs during the show, please?.. If there are any technical hitches, will you please bear with us, and I hope you enjoy it. Thank you very much."
The lights go down, Billie Tricks appears, framed by the bulbs of a backstage make-up mirror in a nightclub, and the first public performance of Closer to Heaven begins.

Afterwards, backstage, the mood is jubilant. Some of the performers mutter about mistakes made, but these were not the kind of mistakes the audience could notice, and the audience quite obviously loved it.

"It goes from tragedy to triumph very quickly," notes Chris. "It's very moral. When there's been a really sad scene, you don't know whether to clap."

They both look happy, and very relieved. Neil takes a bottle of champagne into the dressing rooms, and a little celebrating begins.

May 29, 2001. Chris and Jonathan Harvey have agreed to do a live web chat on virgin.net to promote the musical. They meet at the virgin.net offices in Leicester Square.

"You can type fast, can't you?" Chris asks Jonathan. "You can speak in my tongue, can't you?"

"Yes," says Jonathan.

"God," sighs Chris. "It's two days to go."

They are taken into the room where the web chat will take place. Four computer screens are lined up on a table. The idea is that they will sit in front of one, but that a man on one side will select the questions which appear in the chat itself, and that a woman by the window will type in their answers.

"We don't have to type?" says Chris, sounding disappointed. "I think it'd be good, me typing slowly."

The announced start time arrives and passes. There is a technical problem, and people run around tapping at keys and pulling at cords. This goes on for a while.

"We're not keeping our fans waiting, are we?" says Jonathan.

The questions begin. It is a slow process. They are asked a question, they answer it, and something of what is said is then typed in by a woman at the end of the room. So, for instance, Chris is asked how long they have been making records.

"Eighteen years," he says.

"218 yeas," the typist types, then, when Literally points out the slight error, corrects it.

The early questions are a little dull. Both Chris and Jonathan are a bit surprised that there's nothing spicier, and it takes a while to realise that many questions are being kept from them. "Isn't there anything saucier?" Chris complains. "Let's choose our own, shall we?"

They also realise that for the first half of the chat the virgin.net people have been asking them old questions sent in before the chat started, and not letting them see the comments coming in live on the chat-site, so that by the time they do see the live continents, there are plenty of suggestions that Chris and Jonathan are not really there because they don't seem to be reacting to anything anyone is saying. After that, the chat gets much better, though Chris and Jonathan still don't realise that the typist is often summarising what they have said - often in a way which doesn't sound like them, and often misunderstanding the gist of what they're saying. The typist also adds little bits of computer speak

- like Chris "saying" LOL (laughing out loud) -which he would never have typed himself. "Lots of computer prat stuff"' he fumes later.

This is the full text of the chat, not as it necessarily happened, but as it was later posted for posterity on virgin. net:

Jane:     What made you want to do a musical? Jonathan: I've always been a big fan of musicals. It felt like a natural progression from writing straight plays.

Chris:    Jonathan's always used music in his plays, sometimes Pet Shop Boys music... It was a natural thing for us to want to do, because like in Spinal Tap it's one of those things rock groups always promise themselves. When you've been making records for 18 years, it's something fresh and exciting. Also we found that when we've done our own shows we've worked with people in the theatre and we like the way they work, the intellectualism you get, the way the costume designers and choreography all come together, it's totally different from the music industry. Mikey: Did Jonathan approach the PS~ about

doing a musical, or was it the other way around?

Jonathan: The Pet Shop Boys approached me.

The BBC wanted to do a television musical and suggested me as writer. Chris: We particularly liked Jonathan's play Beautifully Thing. Phil: Jonathan - have you written any plays before?

Jonathan: 13 plays, one film and a bit of TV Mikey: I heard that Closer to Heaven took about six years to get to stage after inception. Why did it take so long, and are you planning to do another musical? Jonathan: It took six years because we spoke about it one day and had the first meeting a year after. For the first few years we only worked on it a few weeks a year; because we were working on other things. Chris: The whole process is a lot more complicated than making a record. With a musical you're writing it, but you haven't got any kind of deal. You have to get people interested in it and making it work from the initial stages - you don't know how it's going to work. It's a real learning process. It was only last year when we did a workshop that we realised how much work needed doing on the piece. Having said that, the time seems to have flown by. But we've also been touring, putting out an album and Jonathan's been doing other work -two series of a sitcom.

Joemoz: Have any tracks from the musical been marked as singles yet? "My night"? Chris: Yes. We're thinking of releasing "Positive role model", sung by Paul Keating. None of the songs in the musical will be released as singles performed by the Pet Shop Boys, but produced by the Pet Shop Boys and Stephen Hague. Toni: Jonathan - do people always remember you for Beautiful Thing? Do you want to write something that will replace that as your main claim to fame? Jonathan: People do remember me for Beautifully Thing, but that doesn't bother me. Toni: Pet Shop Boys, do you get pangs of nostalgia for Eighties music when you were on Top Of The Pops with all the other Eighties artists?

Chris: No, I don't really like living in the past. I'm not really into retro stuff. I think the most exciting time is always the present. Having said that I think the Eighties were fantastic, it wasn't the decade style forgot. 1988-89 was my favourite time ever. It was film, inspirational - it was when the Nineties began, all the house music.

Rachel25: What do you think about the Mamma Mia musical, have you seen it?

Jonathan: I really, really like Mamma Mia, though I didn't like the audience. They talked through all the speaking and joined in with all the songs.

Chris: I like Abba's songs, but I never need to hear them again. I thought the show was ghastly (laughs) and nothing like Closer to Heaven. Prm2OOl What are your favourite songs from Closer to Heaven?

Chris:    I think I like "For all of us". It's a sad weepy song at the end of the musical. Jonathan: I think my favourite is "Friendly fire", sung by Frances Barber.

Chris:    She sings it fantastically well. Joemoz: I loved the musical but I have to say that I think "Caligula" is somewhat misplaced in the musical, and does not bring the storyline forward - do you agree, and are you considering changing it?

Jonathan: We have already changed "Caligula", we agreed with you. It is now one of the strongest scenes in the show.

Joemoz: Have you made, or are you planning any substantial changes to the musical, as compared to the first preview?

Jonathan: There's lots of small changes each night.

Chris Dahl: What do you think about Berlin/Germany - did you enjoy the nightfall? Do you have a favourite club?

Chris: Me and Neil really like going to Germany. We've been working with a producer called Chris Zippel in Berlin. I love your sausages.

Sophie: Any chance to see the musical in another country, in Europe or the USA? Chris: With any luck. We have investors from Germany, Mexico, New York. It'd be nice if it

could open in other cities around the world. It's not a spectacular like Cats, or Phantom Of The Opera. It's a play with music, a smaller scale production.

Prm2OOl: Why is Closer to Heaven in such a small theatre? I think PSB likes it bombastic.

Jonathan:          Because it's an intimate show so at the moment it requires an intimate space

Chris:    It's our first musical. We didn't want hype or a really big event. We want people to discover it. We're testing the water to see how it's received. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice wrote Joseph for a school production I~ thuk. It's all part of the learning process. When we made our first record it was released only on twelve-inch imports from New York, so it wasn't exactly bombastic.

Coaster: I know it's probably been asked 100 times but why the name "Pet Shop Boys"?

Jonathan: Because they both come from pet shop owning families. Chris: Neil has a chain of pet shops in the north east of England - Tennant's Terriers. Pikachu: I remember the Pet Shop Boys when I was in my early teens, and you have been going for a number of years now - when do you plan to retire and what are your hobbies? Chris: Well we have no plans to retire because we enjoy making music and there's no real reason to stop. And hobbies, well, stamp collecting...

Rondicko:          Since you've always disassociated yourselves from Eighties things, why are you touring the US with Soft Cell? Chris: They're just one act on one of the most varied, broad and exciting touring bills ever to travel across Asnerica. Also we really like Soft Cell and David Ball went to my school. Paninari: We fans hope Closer to Heaven will be released as video, do you know something about that? Chris: There are no plans to film Closer to Heaven and release it as a video. I think that plays and opera etc. don't really work on film, but I'd hope that one day soon it will be made into a film. I think it'd make a very good film. Dez: Andrew Lloyd Webber - what is his part in this musical?

Jonathan: His company are producing the musical, but he has no creative input whatsoever. Roly: Do you enjoy doing interviews order the Net or prefer face to face?

Chris: I think I prefer over the Net. You don't have to shave.

Sophie: Why doesn't Neil sing in the musical?

Why aren't you really on stage?

Chris: Neither Neil, me or Jonathan are performing in the musical. We are the writers and, as anyone who has seen It Couldn’t "Happen Here will know, me and Neil are not the best actors in the world.

Roxy: Was your childhood dream to become famous? If not, what was it?

Chris: No, I had never wanted to become famous and do not regard myself as famous. I dislike the whole concept of fame and people such as boy-band members ~ho only seek fame -they are shameless. There's a song about it in the show.

Neutron: Jonathan, will you give Neil and Chris a part in the new series of Gimme Gimme Gimme?

Jonathan: No, I wish it to be a success! Chris: As if we would agree to appear in Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!

Edge2life: Do you really have an album ready just in case you die called Posthumously? Chris: There are a lot of unreleased tracks lying around in demo form and I'm sure that they may get released if we both died in a plane crash or something but the repackaged albums contain some previously unreleased mixes and new things.

More camber Boy: Are there plans to release the album from the show? I saw the show last week and thoroughly enjoyed it. Good luck with it. Chris: Yes there will be a cast album due in the auturan.

Neutron: Does writing songs for the new album feel very different from writing for Closer to Heaven?

Chris: Yes. The new album is very different in style to the music in Closer to Heaven. It's quite a different direction, but we're using guitars, real drum samples and it's not so much dance music, but the songs are very heartfelt and emotional

and quite sad, but with very strong melodies, but it's Beautifully

Chris Berlin: Where does the music come

from? Is there an orchestra, or is it from tape? Or even live with synchs? Chris: In the show the music is generated by computer with samplers and electronic keyboards and there's also a live percussionist -there are no tapes.

Guest SO: Chris, I thought you thought guitars were dirty. Chris: Yes, I must be getting dirtier in my old age, but I can't play the guitar; it's Neil.

Claire psb: Are you going on holiday this year?

Jonathan: I'm going to Morocco in August and Mauritius in December. Chris: I'm going to Ibiza. I've never been but I've heard it's very good. Virgin. net: Thanks everyone for joining this chat with Jonathan Harvey and Chris Lowe. Jonathan: Go and see the show! Chris: Thanks everyone for the questions, hope the answers were informative - not everything said is true. Hope to see you all soon. By the way, the musical is rather good! Keep sending your photos to the Pet Shop Boys website, because I like seeing what you all look like.

Even this is not an accurate version of what was transmitted during the chat. Virgin.net had removed and re-edited as they chose - all the "Lou’s and suchlike had gone, presumably because Chris had been annoyed about them, but also many of the spikiest bits of the conversation, as when Chris announced, inaccurately, that Neil and Janet Street-Porter were a couple.

"I want to do another one," reflects Chris in hindsight, "and do the typing myself. It's very annoying when you don't get the true voice of the person."

May 29, 2001. It is two days until the opening night of Closer to Heaven. In the last few days, there have been plenty of worried sleepless nights, and plenty of changes to the show. After a suggestion by the theatre and film director Stephen Daidry, who directed Billy Elliot, they

have changed the end of the show, so that "Positive role model" begins slowly and builds up, instead of launching straight into itself. (Another suggestion of his which has been taken up is that Shell should be topless in the "Nine out of ten" bed scene.) Neil has also completely rewritten the words of "Positive role model" so that they make more sense of Straight Dave's character and where he has ended up. Designer Ian MacNeil has also been to see the show and suggested it should look grubbier and less theatrical - some of the costumes are being changed with that in mind, particularly the dancers' costumes at the end. The end of the first half has also been completely remodelled. When the previews began, "It's just my little tribute to Caligula, darling!" was performed as though taking place on the nightclub stage. It is now performed - broken up - as a rehearsal that afternoon, and an early scene, where Billie Tricks paints Mile End Lee, has also been changed to make more sense of this: Mile End Lee is now dressed as a Roman, and Billie is painting him to get inspiration for her Caligula theme night. (As for Billie herself, they reminded themselves while doing an interview with The Observer newspaper that her original name was the more Germanic Billie Trix, and they have decided that this now should be the character's name: in early copies of the theatre programme it will say Billie Tricks - "collectors items", Neil notes - and after that she will be known as Billie Trix forevermore.)

During the interval, Neil and Chris sneak backstage. They seem happy enough, talking about whether or not it's a good idea after all for Shell to show her breasts. (They don't yet know this will only be the beginning. Within a few weeks, Straight Dave will be licking her nipples and she will be disappearing beneath the blankets and heading for his groin.)

As Neil and Chris sit in the production office a woman comes in and takes a Flake out of the fridge. Chris looks alarmed and says that he was about to eat it - only now has he realised that it is a prop: the Flake which one of the tacky celebrities brandishes in the second half of the show during "Shameless". Though he also

observes that maybe it's not the correct brand. "It should be a white one," he says, "the Anthea Turner one."

They talk about the Internet, web chats and their web site.

"I'm really into saying lots of things on the Internet that aren't true," says Chris. "That's what it's for."

"It is," Neil concedes. "It's its other purpose, apart from sex."

"Sex, lies and video cams," says Chris.

As they hear the announcement telling the audience to return to their seats, they hit on an idea. They could get different celebrities to do the interval announcements each night.

"We could get Sir Ian McKellen in to do it," says Chris.

"Janet'd do it," says Neil.

"Kathy Burke," says Jonathan Harvey.

"Dawn French," says Neil.

"Liz Hurley," says Chris.

"Jamie Bell," says Neil. "It's another of our brilliant ideas."

After the second half, Chris slips out the back of the theatre. "I'm going to dash out to McDonalds quickly," he says, and does.

Neil and Jonathan Harvey discuss some parts of the show which might be improved. "Author; your leading lady is messing up one of your best lines," Neil tells Jonathan. "'I collect sexy working-class boys - I recommend it to anyone'." Then they discuss the beginning of the "For all of us" scene, and decide that the underlying music needs to start right at the beginning of the scene. Neil also frets that the lights go off Straight Dave right at the show's end, just as he is about to make his final gesture. "He should be in a glow," Neil says. "Like Jesus or something."

"He's supposed to smile?" Jonathan asks.

"He's supposed to look.. confident," Neil says. "Like he's on his way."

May 31, 2001. Tonight, Closer to Heaven

officially opens. It's a hot night. Outside the theatre are photographers and film cameras. Elton John and Janet Street-Porter make their way through the crowds; Andrew Lloyd Webber

circulates. It feels like quite an event, a feeling which only increases when the performance starts. There's laughter from the start, and the euphoria during the curtain calls is extensive and unforced. Famous members of the press are seen applauding keenly, and the word seems to be that they like it. (The next morning everyone will discover that this is not the whole picture -see News, pages 3A - but it would be difficult to get any other impression tonight.)

Afterwards, there are drinks in the Tapes bar in the theatre basement. Spirits are high.

"What a good night that was," says Chris.

"We've had a fantastic night," says Neil.

A few people wander back into the empty theatre, and sit in the audience seats, away from the party. Chris talks to Tom Walker who plays Mile End Lee, and who he has talked to many times before in the last few weeks. Chris suddenly says to Tom Walker, "you're not from Manchester?" (Chris thought he was from Manchester because he studied drama there.)

"Somerset," Tom Walker says.

"What is your real accent?" Chris asks.

"What I'm talking now."

"It's very actor-y," Chris comments.

"That's why he's an actor," intercedes Neil. "My first day at school they called me Poshie."

They compare the reactions they've heard.

"Keith Allen could not believe how good it was," says Chris.

"Ian McKellen wants to play Billie Trix," says Neil.

Chris, thoroughly satisfied by the night, decides to go home. He heads off through the stage door then returns a few minutes later. That way's shut.

Neil leads a convoy on foot to the after show party at the bar AKA, where revelries will continue late into the night. Quite a few fans also follow, trailing down the street behind him. On the way, he stops off at The Ivy restaurant where some friends were enjoying an after-dinner meal. They have just left. The doorman asks him how the opening night was.

"It went very well," says Neil, and gestures behind him. "As you can see, we've brought half the audience."

Copyright Areagraphy Ltd 2001: All Articles have been
Taken From Literally 2001 Issue 24